Cardinal Sean Brady requests GAA to stop games clashing with mass

Cardinal Sean Brady has written to the Gaelic Athletic Association requesting they stop scheduling football games at the same time as Sunday morning Mass.

Cardinal Brady, who is the archbishop of Armagh sent the correspondence to the four county boards of Armagh, Derry, Tyrone and Louth.

It is though he decided to write the letter after several priests expressed their concerns over the parishioners missing mass due to the starting time of games.

Michael Kelly, the deputy editor of The Irish Catholic Newspaper told BBC News that the issue was becoming an "increasingly bigger problem at under-age games".

Kelly added that priests have been voicing these concerns for a number of years.

"Most of the inter-county action happens on Sunday afternoons, sometimes Saturday evenings, but it is the under-age games that are tending to take place on the Sunday morning and when there aren't games there is sometimes training scheduled for Sunday morning," he said.
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